Improved wear resistance of an aluminum – zirconia composite

The wear resistance of aluminum has been improved with zirconia material. The method consists in compacting aluminum powder and the compacted piece immersed several times in a colloidal zirconia solution until a constant weight was reached. The solution penetrated the piece and infiltrated the preform. A wear test was carried out in a pin-on-disc machine. By measuring the weight loss, it was shown that the composite had significant improvement in wear resistance compared to pure aluminum.